Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

We have a housing crisis. It is an emergency. Everybody seems to realise it except the members of the Government, who are displaying ostrich-type behaviour. However, burying their heads in the sand is not going to deal with this issue. An emergency requires an urgent response. The members of the Government are the only people who think they have delivered that. The first thing to do in a crisis is to try to stop making it worse. They have not even got that bit right. The numbers of people without a secure roof over their heads has skyrocketed under this Government's watch. Contrary to what Deputy Mulherin said about the solutions it is implementing, what we have had has not been an abundance of solutions but rather a hell of a lot of announcements at a time when people needed a lot more. The actions the Government has taken have actually made things worse.

Is it not ironic that, 145 years ago on from the land wars of 1870, where the demands of the three Fs were put forward, two of them - fixity of tenure and fair rent - have still not been delivered? Some 145 have passed and we have not even got that bit right.

The Government's announcement of its solution of that issue has made things immeasurably worse for tenants because, thanks to the Government's dillydallying and delaying on this, we have seen the greatest jump in rents since 2007 in this past month. I have no doubt the delays were deliberate on the side of the Minister, Deputy Noonan, who very much tends to have the ear of the REITs.

Simplistic points have been made suggesting the problem with dealing with landlords is because a number of Deputies are landlords. I do not believe that is the problem, rather the problem is with the REITs. The problem is the large vulture capital funds that have been allowed to dominate the rental market in this city, a system facilitated and nurtured by NAMA and the by the antics engaged in by NAMA, not least with the scandalous decision on the Government's watch to allow the sale of Project Arrow while Cerberus is under criminal investigation in a number of jurisdictions. Even parking that travesty, the fact the Government would give away a portfolio, half of which was residential property in this country, for less than €1 billion and at the same time announce it was going to spend a couple of hundred million euro on building housing units does not make sense. Those units should have been provided and put on the market for the people who need houses now.

I agree totally with the points made by Deputy Joan Collins in regard to the measures that are required when distressed properties with tenants are being sold. No serious proposals have been made in that regard. This evening, we received a circular from FLAC regarding the Government's inadequate ability to deal with the issue of mortgage arrears. In that circular, Noeline Blackwell speaks about the Government's solutions for keeping people in their homes. She said she knew last May these solutions needed to be put in place, but there has been bewilderingly little progress on putting these measures in place. Only 110 mortgage to rent agreements have been put in place. This is pathetic and undoubtedly means that for many of these over-indebted borrowers and tenants who live in buy-to-let properties in arrears, the promises made over the past six months have resulted in no improvements in systems to allow people take control of their debt and gain security in their homes.

There are no real delivery from the new measures either. The Government is providing modular dwellings, something many people have serious doubts about, but is placing them on sites that have already been serviced for the delivery and building of social housing. One could not make this up. The fundamental flaw in the whole Government approach to this matter is that it is displaying what the previous Government also displayed, an over reliance on the private market. However, the private market cannot deliver and meet the housing needs of citizens. We need an intervention by the State and we need a level of house building and provision that we have not seen in the past number of years.

The fact the Government has announced it intends to spend €4 billion to 2020 on housing is not a cause for great celebration because everybody knows that it has paid €2.5 billion to line the pockets of private landlords over the past number of years. Also, the overwhelming bulk of the moneys now being provided will go to the private sector. There must be an absolute change in approach. Some €27 million is being spent on remediation of Priory Hall, so why is that building not being made available? Sites in St. Teresa's Gardens and other areas are ready to go and all that is needed is investment and for the Minister to access the funds. The situation is not good enough. This is an emergency and that means we need an urgent response from the Minister, not an announcement. We need to see improvements on the ground. What has been delivered is too little and too late.

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